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Main Page Massachusetts Courts and Jails Deteriorating
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Posted by: fscpd907

Courts and jails are overcrowded and deteriorating

By Toni Scott and Amy Rafferty

Each day in Massachusetts, prisoners, correctional officers, judges and lawyers find themselves in state facilities that are old, overcrowded and, sometimes, deteriorating and unsafe.

*Bristol County's Ash Street Jail in New Bedford is the oldest operating jail in America. Built in 1828, it has been the subject of lawsuits challenging conditions in the largely windowless lockup. The jail's cells lack automatic door locks: in the case of a fire, a correctional officer must unlock each door.

*The Middlesex County jail, located at the top of the Cambridge courthouse, was ordered shut down in 2005 because of asbestos. Inmates remain in the jail because there are few other places to hold them.

*Funding for emergency repairs at the state's 110 courthouses is running low. Court officials say they need at least $30 million to fix problems at many of the older facilities. They say hundreds of millions will be needed in the long term.

Gov. Deval Patrick has pledged $143 million to the commonwealth's correction department from a proposed billion-dollar bond bill. The money would include $500,000 for a yearlong study of jails and courthouses. But needs created by the state's surging prisoner population may overwhelm those funds.

Worcester County Jail has been beset with financial, staffing and population problems for years. Today, the jail designed for 822 inmates holds 1,569 who sleep in rows of bunk beds laid out in the jail's gymnasium.

The jail is under an order from a federal judge to reduce the number of inmates by 300 next month.

The Middlesex County jail, built in 1971 to house 160 inmates, houses 372. Another 186 inmates of the county are housed in other facilities across the state.

The jail in Plymouth County has a capacity of 1,140. In recent months their population has hovered around 1,640.

Counties aren't alone when it comes to overcrowded facilities. Of the 23 facilities under the state Department of Correction, only three were operating at or below their capacity rate for the months of June to September.

A recent report found the DOC is operating at 142 percent of its design capacity. There are 11,136 inmates in state facilities that have a combined capacity of 7,802. Concord Correctional Facility is 228 percent of its capacity; the Framingham Awaiting Trial Unit operates at 350 percent capacity.

Although overcrowding is not an issue at the Ash Street jail in New Bedford, conditions there are a harbinger for the future as other county and state facilities age.

Peter Costanza, an attorney with Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said the building is too old to continue functioning as a jail.

"It's very primitive," Costanza said. "It was built for the standards of the time, which is almost 200 years ago. There's no natural lighting. It's like a dungeon."

At the time of a 1998 lawsuit the jail held 205 inmates, but only a percentage of the 200 cells were in use due to disrepair. Some cells housed three people, with prisoners sleeping on a mattress or hard shells on the floor.

"They were in there like sardines," Costanza said. "It wasn't healthy or safe."
Although a state court judge ruled the jail could only house one prisoner per cell, he did not close the jail or require the jail to install automatic door locks.

Constanza concedes that the conditions at Ash Street have improved, but he is quick to point out that they still aren't where they should be.

"The courts and sheriff have made the conditions better, but they're never going to make them good. It's just less extreme," Costanza said.

But Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson doesn't see the need to build a new facility.

"We meet the basic requirements and it seems to me that we're in good shape," Hodgson said. "We shouldn't have the taxpayers pick up a tremendous cost to improve a facility that should be a secondary priority."

Posted by: rg1283

"We meet the basic requirements and it seems to me that we're in good shape," Hodgson said. "We shouldn't have the taxpayers pick up a tremendous cost to improve a facility that should be a secondary priority."

I actually agree with that crazy sheriff that reminds me of a sylvester stallone movie Jail Warden.

Its a jail. Sure there is such a thing as wrong place wrong time and one gets arrested, but that seems rare if you don't hang around with a bunch of scumbags.

Posted by: OutOfManyOne

Isn't this guy Hodgson the SHeriff from somewhere down south where he wanted to start patrols in New Bedford,Fall River, bought cruisers. I saw one of his hack Captains at a meeting for PacketCluster as they were buying laptops for all their new issued Patrol Vehicles for police work. He was even looking at a helicopter. No money my ass, hack ass loser.

Posted by: 94c

Quote:

Originally Posted by OutOfManyOne

Isn't this guy Hodgson the SHeriff from somewhere down south where he wanted to start patrols in New Bedford,Fall River, bought cruisers. I saw one of his hack Captains at a meeting for PacketCluster as they were buying laptops for all their new issued Patrol Vehicles for police work. He was even looking at a helicopter. No money my ass, hack ass loser.

I seriously doubt you saw a Captain at any meeting.

They're all Majors and Generals.

Posted by: K.Lavoie

Quote:

Originally Posted by 94c

I seriously doubt you saw a Captain at any meeting.

They're all Majors and Generals.

Hahaha, not far from the truth!!!!!!!

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